Edward Brooke Quotations

When I arrived in the Senate, the moderate so-called Rockefeller Republicans held the balance of power.

I'm looking for the best person irregardless of political party, of race or religion, or color of their skin. Those things don't matter to me. I want someone who's qualified, who has a qualification to character and the integrity to do the things that have to be done to save this world.

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and I found that out when I was Attorney General in Massachusetts.

Fred Thompson was a law partner of mine.

I am not a civil rights leader, and I don't profess to be one.

I can't serve just the Negro cause. I've got to serve all the people of Massachusetts.

I chose the Republican Party early on in the 1950s and 1960s in Massachusetts. My father was a Republican, as was my mother, in Virginia.

I don't intend to leave the Republican Party, but I would like to move the Republican Party more to the center.

I grew up segregated, but there was not much feeling of being shut out of anything.

I never studied much at Howard, but at Boston University, I didn't do much else but study.

I want to be elected on my own ability. Only then do you have progress... People should not use race as a basis for labelling me.

I wanted to go to Washington to bring people together who had never been together before. I wanted to break down the barriers between races.

I was entirely comfortable reaching across the Senate aisle to work with Democrats.

I was one of God's chosen few, no doubt about it. Not only being elected, but the joy and pleasure I derived from it. It was a wonderful life.

In my state, the Republican Party was the most progressive party.

Intemperance and intolerance serve no one, and hatred guarantees failure.

My fervent expectation is that sooner rather than later, the United States Senate will more closely reflect the rich diversity of this great country.

Politics is not a tea party. When it is time to act, you have to move fast and decisively.

President Nixon has lost his effectiveness as the leader of this country, primarily because he has lost the confidence of the people.

When most presidents get in, they move to the center because they realize that this is a centrist country - even Reagan.

You can't say the Negro left the Republican Party; the Negro feels he was evicted from the Republican Party.

I always believed there would be an African-American president. It was something I'd dreamed about, thought about, but certainly did not believe would happen in my lifetime.

I had male breast cancer and had dual radical modified mastectomy, and I've spent a lot of time working with the Susan G. Komen foundation to make men aware of male breast cancer - if you have breast tissue, you can have breast cancer.

I've never tried to run away from my race. I was born a black man. You know that in your bones as soon as you are able to understand this country... My approach to life about race is, I don't see the difference between black people and white people.

My campaign confirmed my belief that although there are bigots in America, whose hateful rhetoric seizes the media's attention, the vast majority of people do not harbor such prejudice.

When I left the Senate in 1979, there were several publishers who had approached me about writing an autobiography, and I knew that politicians write books for many reasons, but at that time, I just thought I wasn't ready and my story wasn't over, and I knew I had a new life ahead of me.

Richard Nixon was a very complex man. I don't think he was a conservative, nor liberal, not even a moderate. He was a pragmatic politician. He loved politics.

The polarization of Congress; the decline of civility; and the rise of attack politics in the 1980s, the 1990s, and the early years of the new century are a blot on our political system and a disservice to the American people.

The member of Congress who forgets his constituents' needs usually serves only one term.

Once bitten, you seldom lose the political bug.

To stand still is to regress.

I deplored a system that made it more profitable not to work than to work. I wanted to help change all that.

Historically we have rejected extremism on the left and the right. Centrism is the right course for America.

In elective politics, it's up or out. You go up the ladder, or you get out of the game.

America is the only country in the world that classifies as Negro any person who has one drop of African blood in his or her veins.

Election victories are a harvest. You plant the seed. For months or years, you water and tend them. In the election season, you reap the harvest.

I spent many years working for voting rights, but we still see sophisticated efforts, led by white officials, to disenfranchise black voters in local and national elections.

Labels applied to people of any race are inherently offensive.

My entire life has been devoted to breaking down barriers, to finding common ground.

My parents taught me that racial prejudice is a sin, one that robs the world of great minds and talents.

When people treat corruption as a routine part of the process, you have something far worse than wrongdoing or moral failing. You have a political cancer that breeds cynicism about democratic government and infects all of society.